Spring temperatures are climbing and so are the number of podcast episodes on Superintendent Radio Network. We filled your feed with eight last month across six different series. In case you missed any – or want to go back for another listen – here’s a recap, complete with links.
We traveled north of the border to open the month, as Rick Woelfel talked with Natalie Russell, second assistant superintendent at Country Hill Golf Club in Calgary, Alberta, on Episode 33 of the Wonderful Women of Golf podcast. Russell has volunteered at a pair of tournaments along the Monterey Peninsula – the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2024 Pebble Beach Pro-Am. That more recent event was slammed by a storm, trimming it to 54 holes. “The wind was really what did us in,” Russell told Woelfel. “The wind picked up to over 60 mph and, with the saturated ground, just took out everything in its path. There were trees down everywhere, TV towers. ShotLink was down. It just tore through all of the on-course structures like I’ve never seen before.”
The Villages is arguably the most famous retirement community in the country. It is also arguably the most mind-boggling collection of golf courses in the country. How many? According to vice president of golf Rickey Craig, there are 57 courses – at least for now – including a trio of 18-hole championship courses, 10 27-hole championship courses, and 44 executive, 9-hole, and par-3 courses. Add that up and Craig his mammoth team maintain 747 holes of golf. Projects need to be planned out a year in advance. Craig talked with editor-in-chief Guy Cipriano on Episode 20 of Disease Discussion, sponsored by BASF, about how the work gets done. “Everybody is going to the golf course or getting off the golf course,” he said of the lifestyle inside the sprawling community.
I traveled to Southers Marsh Golf Club in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to talk with golf course superintendent and cranberry farmer Will Stearns, who … wait. Golf course superintendent and cranberry farmer? Yep. Stearns is about to open his 24th season at Southers Marsh, which he helped build alongside his late, great father, Big Will Stearns. They constructed the course around 30 acres of active cranberry bogs. The course is gorgeous, even on cold, rainy, late-winter afternoons, and Stearns is a gem. “There are so many similarities between being a golf course superintendent and a cranberry farmer,” Stearns said on Episode 53 of Beyond the Page. You’re an amateur at a lot of things — amateur carpenter, amateur mechanic, you do a little bit of everything here and there, which is really fun.”
Talking Turf Weeds is back for its third season and so is Dr. Jared Hoyle. The good doctor has a new title — he’s now ornamental market development specialist for Corteva Agriscience, which sponsors the series — and he’s a dad for the second time! Territory manager Nic Mitchell joined Hoyle for his first appearance on the series with his own great news: He got married late last year. The duo talked with me about summer annual weed control. (It’s never too early.) “Preparation is No. 1,” Hoyle said. Trying to be one step ahead and not be reactive is crucial, especially on the golf course. … Pre-emerge season could be year-round.” “Mother Nature,” Mitchell added, “has thrown a little bit of everything at us this year.”
Brian Knoche started working in the golf course maintenance industry for “fun money” back in 2010, raking bunkers alongside teenagers maybe half his age. That sparked two more seasons mowing greens, then a run learning how to handle equipment. He eventually wound up at Lost Rail Golf Club, a new course in Gretna, Nebraska. “It’ll probably be where I retire from,” Knoche told Trent Manning on the latest episode of Reel Turf Techs. “I fell in love with the property and really like the flow and how laid-back things are. There is a demand on me for quality, but I enjoy it, and if I don’t set high expectations for myself, I’ll never have high expectations.”
What a year this will be for golf course architect Jim Nagle. Lancaster Country Club, which was a hometown club during his childhood and which he has worked to enhance for more than 20 years alongside Ron Forse, will host its second U.S. Women’s Open later this spring. Before then, though, Nagle marks the start of a new chapter: He launched his own firm, Nagle Design Works, after a long run with Forse. “I was really unsure of what things would look like other than those projects I was managing and that were under construction,” Nagle told Guy on Episode 93 of Tartan Talks. “I had a pretty good expectation that when I notified clients of this change, they’d say, ‘Jim, we have worked with you for a long time, and we will continue working with you.’ What I didn’t expect was the response I have gotten on potential projects for the years to come. I’m very excited about them. Many of them are right in the development stage.”
Finally, Guy and I recorded a pair of Green with Envy episodes, recapping our recent trips to New England, Philadelphia and the Dakotas. An octet of course visits and far more fantastic conversations than that, plus some talk about the American cranberry market, the twinned history of North and South Dakota, one of the more intense college sports rivalries you have likely never heard about, and more. “Are you a Bison or a Jackrabbit fan?” Guy asked me. “Don’t answer that question! That’s too politically charged with our readers! Trust me on that!”
